Passing strange ...

The wonderful strangeness of the magnolia: I think a flower had bloomed and fallen here, but we still had a bud as furry and brown as a mouse, a dark finger pointing to the left, and the pink complexity of the central spur, while overhead the later blooms still waved in the breeze.

Passing strange indeed, on this day which was both Shakespeare's birthday and the 400th anniversary of his death ...

Othello:
My story being done,
She gave me for my pains a world of sighs;
She swore, in faith 'twas strange, 'twas passing strange;
'Twas pitiful. 'twas wondrous pitiful,
She wish'd she had not heard it, yet she wish'd
That heaven had made her such a man